As a safety precaution,
if your room or apartment window faces the street, you may want to
keep a low-watt light on in that room all the time. That way, if
people are casing your building from across the street and
you come home after dark, it's not as though they'll see a
room light go on a few minutes after you enter your
building. In seeing a light go on, they might think,
"Blonde in her 20's goes into 906 East 74th at 3:00 AM during the week, and
lives on the 3rd floor, east side of the
building." Not that anything bad can come of this, but it's worth paying the Utility Company those extra
pennies per month to keep curious eyes
from learning more info than you'd care for them to know.

At times, areas aren't
brightly lit and I think it's good to carry a flashlight.
Sometimes strangers are loitering on an apartment building's stoop
after midnight. Some folks use a flashlight on night loiterers to get
a better look at their faces, they generally
move.

If the front door to your
building's vestibule is unlocked, peer inside before
stepping into it. If there are strangers in there, you can
tell them to please leave the area, but step back as they do. Stay
several feet away from them and ask them to walk up the
street. Do not attempt to enter
your building with a stranger on your stoop or in the
vestibule. If need be, make use of a local bar's bouncer or a local building attendant. Or if you have just cabbed home, ask the cab driver to have him/her watch as you
go inside your building.